I have collaborated with Paul Asbury Seaman and several mixes and I look forward each and every one. Paul's mixes tend to be more ethereal, spiritual than mine and that's why I enjoy them so much. they take me on journeys I would go on otherwise.

They way Paul and I work on these mixes is he sends me his well thought out tracklist in order. Then I just mix them together so they flow well. Essentially, Paul does all the heavy lifting.

So here is our latest collab - Shimmering Land. Paul had this to say about it:

"Meg Bowles is one of the few (prominent) female artists working in the ambient/electronic genre. She has only released five albums, including Evensong earlier this year, seven years after her last one, so there’s cause for celebration. All her albums are top-notch ethereal/soothing journeys similar to the tracks by other artists featured here. This mix includes a beautiful piece by Deborah Martin from her recent compilation."

Welcome to another great collaboration with my cosmic friend, Paul Asbury Seaman. The term "collaboration" gives me too much credit because Paul does the heavy lifting of finding the tunes and deciding on a sequence. I just mix them together.

This is another mix with a train-like propulsive feel but this one also has more space travel vibe. I like this mix more and more with each listen. Here's what Paul has to say about it:

Like with Dave, my mixes often build on a single track (or title) I like, in this case a piece of artwork by Jon Lomberg, going back several decades, that was used to illustrate one of the chapters of Carl Sagan’s first book, THE COSMIC CONNECTION: “The Night Freight to the Stars.”

This is an interstellar tribal/trance mix, with the emphasis not on nostalgia but a forward-looking magical realism. The ASC piece reflects an adrenaline-infused take-off (after Jon Serrie sets the space-travel motif and Adam Fielding sets the train motif). But then things settle down for the long haul between stars…

A few months ago when I reached out to a few folks to create guest mixes, one of the first people I contacted was Matt Borghi. I've been listening to Matt's music for a long time and with him running the Ambient Soundbath Podcast it would be a perfect fit.

I absolutely adore the mix he has come up with as Harold Budd is one of my all-time favs as well.

I'll let Matt tell you about the mix:

I was very pleased when Dave invited me to submit a guest mix to the Low Light Mixes. Dave's mixes are as diverse as they are interesting and they're always chill with good vibes. I spent quite a bit of time thinking about what I might contribute that could hang with so many great mixes. I have a certain thing I do with the Ambient Soundbath Podcast, but the Low Light Mixes are more all-encompassing.

After a couple months of deliberation, I decided that I would feature the work of my favorite composer, Harold Budd and newcomer, Durango Budd. Harold Budd's fantastic catalog of work very much informs the work of Durango Budd (https://durangobudd.bandcamp.com), and both of these artists have the piano at the center of most of their creative pursuits. Harold Budd has a well-publicized and longstanding love/hate relationship with the piano, yet he manages to coax such beautiful music out of a wood box filled with felt-tipped hammers and strings. Durango Budd, similarly, takes the same instrument and through experimentation and synthesis manages to coax out equally beautiful, distressed tones that evoke melancholic nostalgia (as Mike Carss, the artist known as Altus, put it - https://www.altusmusic.ca/).

In any case, many thanks to Dave for letting me do this mix and I hope that folks enjoy what I've put together.

When researching artists or labels that might be interested in doing a guest mix I came across a label that is based very close to me here in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. I'd never really thought that there might be an ambient community here.

I decided to do a search for "ambient" and "Milwaukee." And what do ya know, I got an interesting result right away. In an article about the essential Milwaukee albums of 2017 was a blurb about Apollo Vermouth and her album "Crashing into Nowhere." I immediately headed over to Bandcamp and was so excited to find that it's an excellent album.

Apollo Vermouth is Alisa Rodriguez, based right here in Milwaukee. So I asked her to do a mix and she was nice enough to curate some tunes. Here's what she had to say about these tracks:

"This mix is a collection of ambient tracks that have hit me in a certain way. It’s hard for me to put into words of what they mean to me. I spend a lot of time by myself, always looking for something that makes me feel less lonely. Somehow, these tracks sort of saved my sanity. It’s funny how music can be like your best friend. They’ll never leave you in the dust."

That pretty much describes my relationship with ambient music too. Go visit her page, buy some music and listen to this mix.

I have decided to reach out to a few folks in the ambient community about doing some guest mixes. Basically I'm just lazy and want content without much work.

Actually I thought it would be nice to come at these mixes from some new perspectives. And at the same time promote some artists and labels both here and on Mixcloud.

This first guest mix is exactly what I was looking for. It is a bit darker than I normally produce and that's why it's great to bring a new mindset to these mixes, it opens new doors and explores new sounds. There are definitely some awesome sounds in this mix.

This music comes to us from James Armstrong, the man behind Rusted Tone Recordings. Check out their first sampler release here...

https://rustedtonerecordings.bandcamp.com/releases

Here's what James has to say about the mix...

"This mix was created to showcase the unreleased work of artists scheduled for solo releases on Rusted Tone Recordings throughout 2018 and into 2019. Ranging from the guitar-based melancholy of Wil Bolton, Spheruleus, and Darren Harper, to the abstract ambient manipulations of James Osland, Kepier Widow, and Red On Maroon, the mix promotes the diversity and creative dedication of the musicians on the RTR Roster.

A majority of the tracks included were contributed by the artists themselves for the label’s initial sampler (see link below), with the exceptions of James Osland (White Label Recs. - forthcoming), BCOM (slef-release), and Red On Maroon (Quietest Records - The Tape Works #1). All tracks written and recorded by the respective artist, mastered by James Edward Armstrong."

Thanks!

T R A C K L I S T :

00:00 James Osland - Just Fell Me Dear Human

04:58 Wil Bolton - Nerine

08:42 Spheruleus - Dimly Lit

13:04 Building Castles Out Of Matchsticks - Shifting Insomnia And The Dream Incubator

I am starting the year off right with another fantastic mix from my friend Paul Asbury Seaman. You may remember his previous collections posted here - The Memory of Trains, Floating Through Moonlight, and Icelight.

This mix does a wonderful job of creating a mystical vibe, like the title says, but without being too new agey. I love the nice long track from Louigi Verona in the middle of the mix. Here's what Paul has to say about it...

“From the beginning, ambient-electronic music has been almost synonymous with “space music” as well as inward journeys. Whether through post-tribal rhythms or the meditative drones of long-form compositions, this is music designed to facilitate an altered consciousness, or maybe something much less talked about: a sense of reverence. Featuring three of the genre’s “tribal elders,” as well as some more recent masters, this is a mix for gentle meanderings into a space of grounded bliss."

I hope you enjoy Paul's excellent collection of Mystical Ambience."

Cheers!

T R A C K L I S T :

00:00 John Serrie - Valley of the Nacoochee(Spirit Keepers 1998)

05:55 Max Corbacho - Transparent Phenomena(Source of Presnt 2017)

09:10 Robert Rich & Markus Reuter - Twining Branches Make A Path(Lift a Feather to the Flood 2017)

My musical friend, Paul Asbury Seaman, has given us another gift in this beautiful collection. Paul picked out the tunes and the order & I stitched them together to form the mix. It was a joy to assemble.

Here's what Paul had to say about the mix:

"This is another bedtime, dreaming, unwinding, floating-away-on-an-interior-journey mix. The starting inspiration came from Michael DeMaria’s piece, “Moonlight” from his 2004 album The River. I was so struck by how precisely the music evoked the image of moonlight on water. I have always been drawn to rivers and from the early days of ambient/electronic music more than forty years ago, with the likes of Kitaro and Tangerine Dream, I have described this genre as “journey music”—Silk Road journeys, interstellar journeys and journeys down a moonlit river."

I've done a lot of mixes over the last ten years. Obviously I try to have a theme or mood for each mix. It can get difficult come up with new motifs. That's why I love the idea that Mike G of Ambient Music Guide had last year. We decided to trade guest mixes and he suggested we each send each other a few mix titles and that we select one and build the mix off of that title. It really gets me thinking differently and can help get me out of a rut when looking for mix inspiration.

This mix is the second guest mix from Mike. I love getting these mixes because so often there are artists or genres I normally don't use but that I love listening to. This mix exemplifies that perfectly. I don't listen to as much "space" music as I used to and as I lost myself in this mix I realized that I really need to revisit this style of ambient more often. I am looking forward to using this as a stargazing soundtrack when I vacation in northern Wisconsin later this summer.

Mike & I agreed to do guest mixes for each other with each mix starting with just a title. We gave each other a title to build a mix on. In this case I gave Mike "Lapse into Reverie" and he took it from there.

In this mix Mike includes some fav artists that I haven't listened to in a long time. Such as David Parsons, Michael Stearns & Mychael Danna, It was good to hear them again.

A couple of posts ago I mentioned a favorite new ambient blog - Ambient Landscape. I visit quite often, usually finding new music, interesting links and good mixes.

I reached out to Gene, who runs the blog and asked if he would do a guest mix for Low Light and I'm happy to say that he agreed. The result is this Robert Fripp themed mix - "fripp_2015."

I love listening to well done mixes where I'm not entirely familiar with all the tunes. That way everything just blends seamlessly, one track into another, I can't tell where one begins and another ends. Being a long time Fripp fan, any mix that features his music immediately gets my attention and this one does that and more. This is a great collections of tunes whether you're a Fripp fan or not.